Can a show that has endured for 14 years, been nominated for the animated-program Emmy seven
times and won twice be underappreciated?

Did you know that
Futurama is in the midst of its last batch of episodes?

Case closed.

Matt Groening’s blackhearted but good-spirited science-fiction spoof, created in 1999 to
capitalize on the success of
The Simpsons, started strong. Then it faded as Groening and Fox feuded over content, and
the show was moved from the Sunday animation block to Tuesdays.

Fox dropped it after four seasons, but its popularity in reruns and on DVD prompted Comedy
Central in 2008 to revive it. Now, canceled for a second time, it began spooling out its last 13
episodes on June 19, leading to an assuredly unsentimental finale on Sept. 4.

It’s not fair that
Futurama, which follows a hapless multispecies crew at the 31st-century delivery outfit
Planet Express, gets less attention than many inferior animated series or live-action sitcoms. The
show’s treatment by Fox is partly to blame, but some of its problems have been self-generated.

It has been both ahead of and behind its times. In 1999, it was prescient — an early adopter and
parodist of the geek sensibility, with its mix of science-fiction high jinks and rapid-fire
pop-culture references foreshadowing a significant chunk of 21st-century TV comedy.As the 2000s
progressed and sitcoms descended into easy snarkiness, however,
Futurama began to look old-fashioned because it was still telling complete stories and
delivering clear, comprehensible jokes.

It also suffered from being the younger brother of Groening’s
The Simpsons and sharing similar styles of writing, character drawing and voice acting.
That’s an awfully long shadow to be caught in, although the overall animation of
Futurama — featuring a multitude of interstellar landscapes and copious space-opera action
— has been among the most complex and beautiful on television.

But it’s not the fault of Groening or his partner in the development of
Futurama, David X. Cohen, that they had already set the bar high or that gag- and
plot-based comedies have fallen out of fashion.

The fact remains that few shows have been as steadily funny or as relentlessly inventive,
imagining a future in which a buff, one-eyed alien heartthrob can find love with a doltish
reanimated pizza delivery boy, and where the planet can be ruled by the cryonically preserved head
of Richard M. Nixon.

And, again like
The Simpsons,
Futurama has featured a tremendous and surprisingly devoted voice cast which has stuck
with the show throughout its travails.

The best-known member is Katey Sagal of
Married . . . With Children and
Sons of Anarchy, who brings to life the seductive spaceship captain, Leela. But the
indispensable one is Billy West, who voices simpleton Philip J. Fry and his elderly descendant,
Professor Farnsworth, as well as the alien Zoidberg.